For every book out there on the store shelves that holds the info pagans seek – not many, if any focus so well on just the rites and celebrations pagans have to mark the passage of time.

Yes, in our mundane travels we have birthday parties, baby showers, weddings; but this book finally focuses specifically on the pagan aspects. A welcome and refreshing change indeed – no sorting through a tide of “101” drivel looking for saining information!

Quote pg. 95 para. 1, 3 & 4 from the chapter on ‘Divorce’
“This is a ritual you can use if you want to cut yourself free from a relationship, if your partner doesn’t want to participate, and if you don’t like the formal or public element of a group ritual.

Explain to the tree what you are going to do, and why. Dance around the tree to raise power. Sit down under tree (or, if it is wet and muddy, lean against it’s trunk).

‘Tree, I ask you to be my witness as I release myself from YYYY and YYYY from me.’”

This book came in very handy in the past decade. Two members of Glas Celli pledged their hearts and souls in handfasting rituals (one legal, one ritual ceremony) and at the time Wren, the bride, consulted the book for ideas and in fact eventually wound up with a copy of her own. We’ve consulted the pages for other rituals as well, including saining, first blood, and the inevitable mourning rituals.

We as a grove are pleased to have this on our collective shelf.

5 of 5 Broomsticks
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Jodi Lee, aka ierne Morrighan Corvidae, is a 20+ year veteran of pagan paths. A full-time freelance editor, she is the owner/publisher of Belfire Press.

Within the pages of “Patchwork of Magic” one will find humor disguised as thinly veiled sarcasm. Or – the author is using sarcastic humor to whack the reader with a ‘wake up!’ stick. Ms. Day takes a kind of look into pagan life that most folks only do in silence.

She’s telling it like we all see it, but are too uptight or too non-confrontational to say anything.

Yes, there are some useful tidbits of magical information. Yes, in some ways it’s a short version of a regular old “101.” Realistically I would not have given this book a second glance nor the enthusiastic thumbs up I am doing, had Ms. Day not loaded it down with the giggles.

Quote pg. 62 para. 1 & 2
“Get a soapbox! Get a pedestal! Get a grandmother who was in the Craft, or failing that, an elderly aunt that didn’t go to church too often. Make sure that you DO NOT tell anything of worth to anyone and make them promise not to tell what little they do glean to anyone else, (as you are already writing a book on the subject).

Get people to take very complicated oaths that do not quite fit in with commonsense and then get really miffed when they come to you a while later and say it is not what they were hoping for.”

A definite must have for the shelf, if you can find a copy.

5 of 5 Broomsticks
–
Jodi Lee, aka ierne Morrighan Corvidae, is a 20+ year veteran of pagan paths. A full-time freelance editor, she is the owner/publisher of Belfire Press.

Yes, this one I love. In fact, I’ve played the accompanying CD so much I know all of the words, and my daughter is still convinced he wrote the songs for her (her name is Rhiannon after all…).

The first thing a customer will notice when they open the pages of this book, is that it looks handwritten. This is not type face font! This is something that looks like it took a long time of careful, painstaking printing.

Lyrics, stories and music – definitely the work of a skilled bard. Hugin has a way of weaving the story with so much more skill than most story tellers, and his music is easy to learn, and the editor’s are right – you’ll be playing along in no time, even if you aren’t musically inclined.

I will quote my youngest daughter’s favorite song, set to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell” –

The Cauldron and the Goat

“The cauldron and the goat
The castle and the moat
Fooled by Blodeuwedd
Wearin’ no coat.

You know she had your ear
The spear took a year
Made on the Full Moon
Don’t you feel queer?

He waited for your bath
And hid up the path
The only time the magick failed
Do you feel wrath?

He got you in sight
And slew you so bright
And you were no more a man
An eagle took flight.

‘Til Daddy came along
And sang you a song
And now that story told
End of this song.”

Even now, while typing this, I am grinning from ear to ear. I can hear the music from the CD and the way the song is presented therein… you really must get this if you don’t already have it!

5 of 5 Broomsticks
–
Jodi Lee, aka ierne Morrighan Corvidae, is a 20+ year veteran of pagan paths. A full-time freelance editor, she is the owner/publisher of Belfire Press.